Chapter 69 :The Void Maze(9)

The Inquisitor stooped midway. Leaning forward he quickly and silently slithered back to the cliff.

As expected they had left. And thankfully they left the portal untouched. Still, he checked around to see if they laid any traps. It's already bad they found the portal, he can't let the higher-ups know he was also careless if he let them destroy it.

He did find a curse placed on the area though. Luckily he dug up the skull from under a tree.

He signed. "...Damn saints…" Placing his hand on the ground he poured his mana into one of their footprints. With his eyes closed, in his mind's eyes, he saw which route they had taken and where they were headed.

"What a shame I wasn't able to witness your defeat," a woman's sing-song voice gloated. A tick appeared on his temple.

Scowling he looked up at the sky.

Calliope the bat was snorting at his appearance. "I would have loved to eat out your liver had I come a bit sooner."

"...Already left your owner?"

The bat twirled mid-air. "Abandoned I may be seen, but not without a master I am ever not."

He glared in annoyance and crushed the skull. "Your rhyming is horrible."

Calliope flew down and bit his ear. "It's not for a hissing snake I that sing, but rather the one who holds my string," she screeched into his ears.

"Insufferable pest!" he yelled knocking the bat away. Calliope angrily whistled but flew up. "A hopeful message I bring, though I am sure you'll see it as ill will."

The Inquisitor stared blankly. "If your goal was to annoy me, congratulations you succeeded."

"My master will arrive at noon, make sure everything is done soon."

Anger flashed in his eyes. "That's too soon!" But Calliope the bat wasn't listening anymore and started flying overhead as if to remind him time was ticking.

"Tsk! Guess going after the Saintess of Uranus has to wait…"

He crawled ahead and started the preparations to receive the Ringmaster.

Oriane woke up with an overgrown mushroom on her face. "...Mmph! Mmph!" She failed her arms as her oxygen was starting to decrease.

"Phua!" All at once the mushroom was taken off. "Ha…ha…ha…!"

"Shulia stop putting that mushroom on her face!"

Blinking around she saw Shulia arguing with Anatole while holding an oversized mushroom. "This will work!"

"No, she will be put further into the coma!"

"She will be fine!"

"Old wives tale remedies don't work!"

"Um…excuse me…" They both immediately looked down. Oriane smiled sheepishly. "I'm alright now so…t-there's no need to put…that mushroom over my head again."

"Oriane! You're awake!!" Shulia hugged her tight. "We thought you would never wake up!"

"Hmm! Thanks but would mind getting off? You are crushing my ribs…"

"Ah. Sorry!" she said quickly. Oriane signed when she felt she was sitting on something cold and wet. She let out a surprised gasp when. A thick jelly-like gel came into her view and wrapped itself around her arm.

"Sullivan!? I am so sorry! I am climbing down right now!"

"I'm glad Ori is awake~ Vessie was ready to break Ana's skull if you didn't wake up."

"I wonder why he thinks my skull should be broken when it was the Saintess' idea …"

"Come now you know how much he adores her!"Shulia huffed. "I mean who wouldn't? Sure she's a bit mean but at the end of the day she's a nice kid."

'Is that the narrative she gave you?' Anatole and Sullivan thought grimly.

"Oriane you're up!?" Sylvester rushed inside the clearing. He nearly ran up to her. "Gods, I was so worried when you didn't wake up! Are you alright? Can you move? Or do you want to eat something first? Or maybe you are thirsty?"

"N-no I'm fine…"Oriane stammered, cheeks red from embarrassment.

"Yer scaring' her. She just woke up." Shulia looked at her. "...But tell us if you need anything."

She nodded. "I will. For now, I will just get off now…" She sheepishly started to clamber down from Sullivan's back.

While they got Oriane to use her legs again Anatole took Sylvester aside. "Any sign of the Saintess?" he whispered.

Sylvester shook his head. "No, it's like her entire presence vanished. I can't even feel any residue of her Holy mana." He squeezed his eyes shut before blinking them open. "You don't think…that demon…ate-"

"I doubt it. A mark of ownership is an iron brand of complete obedience and loyalty. If that demon ever tried harming her he would die before anything."

"And besides the Saintess doesn't seem like a person who will die that easily. She'll outlive the Gods."

Sylvester was still pensive. Anatole signed. "We are searching for her, aren't we? I am sure she is also searching for us too."

Somewhere far in the middle of the Void Maze both Claudina and Baron ran from a horde of axe wielding animal headed people, begging, demanding, threatening and enticing Claudina to leave her 'sparrow head' with them as payment for all the good things they did for her.

"The only thing you did was to try and rob me!" Claudina screamed out as Baron hoisted her up.

"So don't worry so much. She'll be fine. I promise."

He continued to frown but regardless walked back to the others.

Sullivan took on his human form after saying it didn't hurt that much anymore.

"...That is concerning," Anatole said. "If a curse doesn't hurt much it means it's working fast enough for you to not even sense it."

Sullivan waved his hand in dismissal. "Oh please! It's going to take a lot more than a measly curse to take me down!"

"And besides if I die, than that's what fate has in store for me! I should accept it rather than fighting against the inevitable. It'll be a waste of my time if I did so."

After Oriane had rested they began their search for a way out. Sometimes they walked on foot or other times they made use of Shulia's wooden horses.

Since the Void Maze was artificial, following one of the logics of magic- anything created by magic to imitate something that had unclassified magic in it- was bound to remain incomplete so the imitation doesn't become a threat equal to the object.

They couldn't kill the Inquisitor as he was Amortal but they could find a crack in the Void Maze.

Time has become a foreign concept. Hours or days could have passed but they couldn't tell how unchanging the landscape was.

For what seemed like an eternity they came across a small farmland. As they were passing it both Sylvester and Oriane felt something off about the land. Both of them stopped to feel the strange aura coming.

"...Sylvester, can you feel this sensation?"

"Yes. It's coming from here."

"I may be mistaken but it feels like the outside."

"You are not mistaken. This is the so-called crack."

"Hmm? What are those two doing over there?" Sullivan and Anatole looked over and sure enough, Sylvester and Oriane were standing, eerily watching the farmland while muttering.

Just as they were about to call out to them, the farmland disappeared in shimmer dust. Now an icy cavern was in its place.

"What in the…?"

"Hey, we found the way to get out!" Sylvester waved at them before following Oriane into the cave.

Despite looking at each other in bewilderment they also trailed after them.

The cave once had running water flowing from it. Stalactites, far older than the Void Maze hung from their roofs. The floor was rough with boulders and large round stones. Yet every inch of the cave was covered in ice and frost.

The temperature was fast dropping in the cave that they had to stop every few minutes to warm themselves.

"I'm f-freezing!" Shulia whispered. Her breath came out in dense air.

"Just a bit more! I can nearly feel it!" Oriane called out from the front. Sylvester motioned for her to come quicker and she hurried after him leaving the other saints to follow their footsteps in the snow.

The deeper they went the more complicated the way was becoming. Had it not been for Sylvester and Oriane the others doubt they could ever find their way out.

The scenery was also changing. The jagged, uneven sharp ice was slowly changed to impressive galleries filled with torch-lit gargoyles and intricate ice sculptures.

Sculptures of the demon king.

Trembling from both cold and fear, Shulia gripped Anatole's arm who in return squeezed her hands to reassure her. Sylvester and Oriane were both unfazed by the situation as they once again focused on where the aura of the crack is.

Going by the strangeness of the cave it wouldn't be a far cry if this was the demon king's castle. With Claudina, they might have had a chance but now they were praying to leave the cave in one piece lest His Majesty finds them trespassing.

Their fears were for nothing though. Because coming from a side door was shrill laughter.

Both Oriane and Sylvester stopped in front of this door.

"...This…"

"...S-should I open it…? Oriane carefully asked.

"...No. I will. Stand back." Pulling out his sword he raised it over his head and brought it down in a swift swing. The ice door was sliced open in half.

From the gap, all of them watched what seemed to be an imp courthouse with bated breath.

"...And that's how the old men woke up!" Shrill voices followed this sentence with loud cheering.

A glacial cave that had been dug out fifty feet deep underground contained more than a few hundred imps in attendance. All of the imps were gazing up at the large raised stage where a play was taking place.

An imp wearing what appeared to be a bloody woman's hair on it's bald head was holding a hammer. Besides it were three imps crudely like old men. Two other imps were standing on a crumbly coffin. Their faces was smeared in white powder and they wore teeth necklaces. The last imp wearing an upside-down crown was standing at the side narrating the story about a ghost family that relied on doing chores for another family to pay their own expenses. Above the raised platform was a giant barbed cage with hissing bats waiting to be let out. This was to be music for the ridiculous play they were putting on.

The audience was also dressed in expensive but blood stained clothes all sat crowded despite the ample space. In the font were seated mostly the better-dressed ones, then the older ones, the young ones, and finally, the raggedy imps that lost in the fight for getting better seats.

"The crack…it's right behind the stage," Sylvester whispered.

"Okay, but how do we get in?"

"Massacre!"

"Sullivan, no."

"Blood bath!"

"Again, no."

"A shit ton of giggles and a few geese short of a gaggle!"

"N.O. No."

"The joy of feeling fresh blood on my skin as I relish the screams of the young and women!"

"...What the hell?"

"For Lord Nyx?"

Anatole signed. "Let him do it. We are going to kill them all after all." He turned to the shaking Sludge pup.

"Go bat shit."

The Sludge pup shook once more before leaping out the sliced door. "I intend to!"

Distressed screams erupted immediately as soon as Sullivan disappeared. "Ahahahaha! Run, run as fast as you can!"

Shulia shivered as the screams went an octave higher.

"...Well what are we waiting for? Kill those sonuvabitches." Anatole took out his sword. "Have no mercy."

With Cheshire cat smiles they leapt through the door and begin the genocide of the imps.

Imps by nature are foolish but it didn't mean they weren't cunning enough to use tricks.

A common tactic they would use was to separate a group of enemies and isolate them from one another before attacking one in a big group and moving on to the others.

The Saints were all kept far apart. In one unanimous decision, the imps ran around the courtroom like headless chickens, tumbling over one another, each group straying one particular saint far away from the other.

But there was one thing that made them so vulnerable; their immense ego and pride. Just by thinking everything was going well so far they become careless and drunk with arrogance.

Once they had surrounded each saint they broke off sharp ice stones to use as weapons. One of them threw these stones and left a cut on Sylvester's cheek.

A rambunctious loud cheering took place just moments after their panicking.

Previously the Saints had hidden their presence and continued till now so the imps believed they were nothing more than a group of inexperienced adventurers.

And unfortunately, that was their undoing.